Greetings.

I just got back from a trip to Moscow. I made extensive use of the Metro
there and thought I'd post my observations on how it compares with the
London Underground.


Things I like better about the Moscow Metro:

* The trains seem to run a lot more frequently. I used the system on both
weekends and weekdays, at various times of the day (morning and evening
rush hours, mid-afternoon, and late at night), and never had to wait more
than three minutes for a train, even if I arrived just as one was leaving
the platform.

* The stations are (famously) very beautifully decorated with marble,
columns, chandeliers, statues, reliefs, murals, etc.

* The stations are very spacious. Even during the crowded rush hour in
central stations there was plenty of space to move around. I was able to
walk quite fast in the crowds; there was no crunching or bottlenecks along
the platforms, though sometimes there was a bit of queuing at the
escalators.

* There is little or no visual advertising. There were no posters on the
platforms or escalators, and inside the trains themselves there were
usually only a couple small recruitment posters next to the maps. However,
some stations did play audio ads on the escalators.

* The pricing is simple: it's 26 RUB for each journey, regardless of
distance or number of interchanges.

* The stations look so clean! In London many of the stations look very
grimy, particularly on the ceilings and far sides of the tunnels. In
Moscow many of the stations are gleaming white everywhere.

* The platforms and trains don't seem to get as hot as London. It was 30
degrees every day I was in Moscow, and yet travelling on the Metro wasn't
particularly uncomfortable. (The buses, on the other hand, were terrible.
Interestingly, instead of displaying the name of the next stop on the bus's
overhead LED display, it would display the internal and external
temperature. The former would be as high as 40 degrees.)

* There seems to be a mobile phone signal in many stations I passed through
(maybe all of them -- I didn't check).


Things I like better about the London Underground:

* Our stations have countdown timers showing the destination of and time to
the next two or three trains. (Though I'm particularly upset at the recent
penchant for installing advertising projectors right in front of them,
obscuring their view and thus making them completely useless from most
viewing angles.) However, this would not be quite so advantageous in
Moscow, where the trains seem to run quite often and the lines don't tend
to split.

* LU stations have better station identification on the platforms: the
station name tends to be repeated conspicuously several times along both
sides of the tunnel, making it easy to tell at a glance through the train
windows where you are. In most of the Moscow Metro stations I passed
through, there were only one or two station signs in the tunnels which
weren't visible from every car, or sometimes even from the platform. If
you weren't listening carefully to the announcements, or counting stations,
then it was impossible to know where you were. Even where signs were
posted, sometimes it was in a very stylized font that took a while to read.


Other observations:

* There was much more uniformed presence in the stations and on the trains.
Station staff and militsiya were numerous and highly visible, though quite
bored-looking.

* The stations don't have entry gates or turnstyles. The only defence
against fare-dodgers seemed to be some uniformed old women standing at the
entrance who would yell, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" at people who
passed through without a ticket.


If anyone else here has used both the London and Metro underground systems,
I'd be interested in hearing how you thought they compared.

Regards,
Tristan

--
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_V.-o Tristan Miller Space is limited
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